Daily Stock Market Report (Thur 29 May 2025) - CHH, JNEO, BMS, WJG, HVPE, SRB, CGT, PMI

Thu 6:03am by Graham Neary

52 comments 5518 reads

Good morning!

In overnight trading, the FTSE is up 0.7% and the S&P is up 1.6%, as a US federal court has just blocked Trump's tariff plans. The Court of International Trade says that the US Congress has exclusive authority to regulate international trade, not the President.

Trump has filed an appeal, and I note that the Republican Party does currently control Congress. Even so, this appears to be a very large spanner in the tariff agenda.

1.50pm: we've run out of time for today, thanks everyone.

Today's agenda is complete.

Companies Reporting

Name (Mkt Cap)	RNS	Summary	Our view (Author)
Auto Trader (LON:AUTO) (£7.90bn)	FULL YEAR RESULTS	Revenue +5%, op profit +8% (£377m). 2026 outlook: retailer rev growth to improve to 5-7%.
Harbourvest Global Private Equity (LON:HVPE) (£1.78bn)	Annual Financial Report	NAV per share return +7.3%, share price +19.2%. Discount to NAV falls from 42% to 35%.	GREEN (Graham) I don't see what the "catch" is - to my eyes it's a reputable, well-diversified investment trust with historical performance of c. 10% annually, currently trading at a very large discount to NAV.
Capital Gearing Trust (LON:CGT) (£846m)	Final Results	NAV return 4.1%, share price +3.6% vs. CPI +2.6%. Discount to NAV 2.8%. Defensively positioned. Paid £194.5m to repurchase shares during the financial year. It also plans to pay a 102p final dividend, due to higher interest income from investments. Outlook: the company should remain “a relatively safe haven for your money as we aim to limit drawdowns and yet keep pace with inflation”.	AMBER/GREEN (Graham) [no section below] This is another very reputable trust although far less ambitious than others: it aims merely to preserve wealth by beating inflation. It has successfully done this in FY March 2025 and has also kept its discount under tight control by buying back a very large percentage of its shares. I view this trust as a solid choice for investors seeking a lower-risk holding.
Cohort (LON:CHRT) (£724m)	Full Year Trading Update	FY April 2025: strong growth in revenue and profit, in line with exps. Outlook: unchanged.
Resolute Mining (LON:RSG) (£617m)	Guinea Exploration Permits Update	Media reports permits possibly being revoked. Company seeking information and clarification.
Atalaya Mining Copper SA (LON:ATYM) (£581m)	Q1 2025 Financial Results	Copper production 14.3kt. Cash cost well below FY25 guidance. CEO v. optimistic for year ahead.
Hollywood…

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planetx

Thu 10:44am

Gordon Brown maybe but didnt he sell all our gold reserves .

pj8

Thu 10:48am

At one time, I was involved in the pay of ship brokers. The lesson I drew (as Mark pointed out) is that topline figures might look good, but in Braemar and Clarkson, an awful lot goes in brokers' bonuses...

Andy Garsed

Thu 10:50am

Thanks, I fully agree.

yiannos1

Thu 10:51am

At his time as Chancellor he was excellent and one of the best.

Unless we blame all past ones that did not buy BTC!

All the best planetex.

Thu 10:52am

Lawson? You must be joking. He engineered the second Thatcher recession - the only time since 1945 that property values fell in absolute terms... a warning for the future of property stocks?

JASVFS

Thu 10:53am

I feel your pain on BMS Andy Garsed, we've held for a long time too. I had to smile ruefully at Mark 's review, he's right on all counts and Roland had warned about the companies priorities after their last TU. We will continue to hold after missing selling into the recent rally but I only to trust the board to look after the board -not us. Thank you Mark and thank you Roland.

Thu 10:55am

Thank you.

Thu 11:02am

Thank you Graham for your review on WJG, I'm optimistic that builders will benefit from Government moves eventually, so once again I'll ignore wise advice on averaging down, we'll add a few more and take it on the chin if I'm wrong. I should have been warned as M&G recently dumped half of their holding pre results.

Rusty2

Thu 11:12am

Also wreck pensions. Plus cause inflation with his duty escalator.
He did introduce ISAs.

Geoffrey Howe some rate higher than Lawson.

Ian Berry

Thu 12:00pm

today’s RNS is probably intended to reassure that they are not unhealthily reliant on SpaceX.

marigold

Thu 12:50pm

Yes and at a ridiculous cheap price.

JohnDoe2378

Thu 3:19pm

Can anyone please confirm Hollywood Bowl (LON:BOWL) forecasts have been cut?

doctor dave

Thu 3:27pm

Stock ranks perform pretty well and I always take note....and actually Watkin Jones (LON:WJG) results are pretty much exactly what they said they would be. They have a big cash pile and so long as interest rates don't go up they will be in a position to do well from here. I hold and am surprised by the extent of the fall - why were people expecting different results?

Silver Moon

Thu 3:48pm

Thinking it was the grey man, John Major with his Tessa, Brownie only renaming it.

Joe Turner

Thu 5:37pm

Don't buy and hold cyclicals is my advice fwiw.

Bouden54

Thu 8:50pm

Harbourvest Global Private Equity (LON:HVPE) is one of many private equity trusts on huge discounts. I don't think there's any particular catch here - they've consistently delivered solid returns, but always tended to trade on wide discounts. This has got worse over last couple of years. Seems to be mainly driven by mistrust over unlisted assets and the accuracy of their valuations (unfounded as they consistently realise assets at an uplift to book value).

Investors also seem to be put off by high charges - private equity investing is very specialist and hands-on and will be more costly than running say a vanilla equity fund (let alone a passive fund), but even after those costs they have tended to outperform public equities so I don't necessarily have a problem with higher charges per se. But many IFAs and wealth managers will automatically exclude them because of the charges, as will many retail investors, so there seems to be a lack of natural buyers.

I guess the other concern is whether private equity can continue to deliver outsized returns in a higher interest rate environment. It's certainly been pretty quiet on the realisation front for the last couple of years.

Deegee Eff

Thu 9:49pm

Geoffrey Howe.

Peter T

Thu 10:12pm

JohnDoe2378 - Hollywood Bowl (LON:BOWL) Proactive Investor reported this morning: "Analysts at Peel Hunt said the good UK weather "will have hurt LFL sales" in the third quarter, and so cut their PBT forecasts from £52.6 million to £50 million."

Berenberg also reduced their forecast for BOWL.

Fri 9:16am

Tessas were only for cash, not shares

Dave R

Fri 1:36pm

I was invested in Harbourvest Global Private Equity (LON:HVPE) for a few years prior to covid as a way of accessing the PE market but exited during the covid downturn. I've been considering reinvesting recently but was put off by some general information I saw a couple of years ago saying the the PE industry in general was overpaying for new investments due to too much capital chasing too few opportunities. This may be the case but I've come to the conclusion that it even if true it would take many years to have any material impact on PE funds.

For me HVPE will always have a wide discount to NAV for the reasons you state, but also because it's a fund of funds. This means increased management costs and but also (importantly) limited control by HVPE on the actual investments - what they initially invest in and when they crystalise those investments. So I don't think it will ever be on a 3i type valuation.

However I still like HVPE and it's performance speaks for it's self. One thing to consider regarding NAV is that they historically under value investments compared to what they finally raise when the investments are sold. Examples -

37% Uplift to Pre-Transaction Carrying Value: For the 12 months ended January 31, 2025, HVPE reported a "Weighted Average Uplift to Pre-Transaction Carrying Value of 37%" for M&A and IPO transactions.

24% Premium to Carrying Value: For the 12 months ended January 31, 2024, they noted that "Exits continued at a 24% premium to carrying value".

31% Uplift on Disposals in 2023: In 2023, the "average valuation uplift on disposals in HVPE's underlying portfolio was 31%, and that was on the low side when compared to the 10 years prior."

32% Weighted Average Uplift: For the six months ended July 31, 2023, there was a "weighted average uplift on carrying value of 32%" on profitable exits.

So actual NAV is probably much higher than what's published. That's a positive for me and one of the reasons I originally invested.

Daily Stock Market Report (Thur 29 May 2025) - CHH, JNEO, BMS, WJG, HVPE, SRB, CGT, PMI

Companies Reporting

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Graham Neary

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